Larry Fink, the Counter-Culture Artist Turned Celebrity Photographer

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Larry Fink juggles numerous titles: He’s a farmer living on a barn in Pennsylvania with his artist wife, Martha Posner; a professor of photography at Bard College; a self-proclaimed humanist; a father; and a photographer — one who’s gained industry-wide acclaim for shooting the most exclusive parties and backstage events swarmed by the cultural elite (think Oscar parties and fashion weeks). But Fink delights just as much (quite possibly even more) in shooting the opposite end of the spectrum; insects, boxers, and “death masks,” for example. Considering that he’s been shooting for 57 years (having first been seduced by the camera at age 12), it’s safe to say he’s taken his lens down every path his interests have led him. In addition to contributing to Vanity Fair, W, GQ, Detour, The New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker, he’s also published eight monographs of his work.

Though he never finished college, Fink has exerted quite an influence on many generations of photographers through his work as a teacher. After picking up his first teaching job in 1963 in Harlem, he later became a professor at institutions like Parsons, Cooper Union, Yale, and Bard, the last of which he claims he’s “been at for 100 years.” The Cut spoke with Fink over the phone about his younger years growing up in a Marxist home, his perspective on teaching, and shooting the fashion and celebrity scenes. He spewed out a bounty of choice phrases (e.g., “I like the constellation of the sun and the stars being happy while they fertilize each other” while describing his appreciation of jazz) — and even though he’s a deep thinker, he never got too serious. For every philosophical musing about culture and humanity, he’d erupt in giggles at a delightful detail previously buried in a memory. Click through the slideshow to delve into the stories behind his photos, and read the Q&A below for his point of view on “violence in fashion,” his first time working for Graydon Carter, and his current projects.

You were studying to be an artist for a bit. When did you decide to go into photography as a career?I didn’t go to school. I never went to college, except for a couple of months, but I used to go up to the Metropolitan, and I studied [paintings]. Then I got to a certain point, to be friends with Dore Ashton, the great art critic, who’s still teaching at Cooper Union. I got acquainted with folks like Saul Steinberg and many of the abstract expressionists, so I expanded my vocabulary way beyond the realism that photography has, and also the realism that my folks were most in favor of, being the socialist types.

Did you always know that you wanted to teach? Or was that something that you just fell into? For me, kind of being a left-wing guy, I always thought that was part of the revolution, if you will. I still think that. Not that there’s any revolution in sight, but there is always a revolution for the human imagination and for the soul. And today, in a very commercial word, with the banking crisis becoming more and more powerful, it’s more and more important to ask the kids about their imaginations, and about their character, and about the humanness of experience. The hopes for the fact of our humanness and for our imagination.

You’ve shot quite a few fashion shows. Do you have any memorable fashion week moments? In the book Runway, Guy Trebay really coined it up really well: “You wouldn’t think of fashion as a world full of violence, but it is.” The violence of obsolescence and the incredible back-biting of cultural roar. There was a lot of that, and I was very much a part of that world because I was there on the scene, carrying on. But I didn’t feel personally part of that scene at all. I wasn’t wearing Armani suits, you can be sure of that. Actually, during the heyday, I went into a fancy shop to price a suit, which I would never wear, but I thought I should have a suit. They were so expensive that I ended up buying a tie. [Laughs.] So, I have a good-looking tie that cost $50.

Could you expand on what you referred to as “violence”? There were innuendos that go on back and forth between the models and the designers, and the amount of anxiety. I used to call fashion weeks ‘Theater without a Plot.’ In real theater, you have a plot where people really move forward in a very empathetic way to see whether they can fulfill the real personality of the character. There’s a great deal of quest for human understanding. In the fashion world, this is not the case. Once upon a time, way before Marc Jacobs worked with Juergen Teller, one of his guys came up to me at a fashion show and he said, “Marc Jacobs loves your work.” And if I was an ambitious guy, a guy with a head for that sort of thing at that point, I would have made an appointment with him right away, and perhaps I would have become a millionaire, perhaps like Juergen Teller is. But I said, ‘Oh, thats great,’ and went on with the program. So I missed my making [laughs].

It seems like you were never fully steeped in the fashion world. No, not really. I did enjoy it, I have to tell you. My mother was a Marxist. She was also a very elegant gal, and she wore mink. She quit the Communist Party because they were too focused on regime, and she liked beautiful and fine things, and they didn’t. They kept on berating her, even though she was a magnificent organizer. I was a Mink Marxist too, which is to say that I was also attracted to voluptuousness and parties and fine things, but always one step away. I was always alone. Actually, Carine [Roitfeld] came up to me at a party and said, “Why do you always have that very, very gleaming smile on your face?” It’s because I had a secret, and the secret was within.

Party shooting is also a niche you became well-known for. What was your first experience shooting high-profile parties like? I was real anxious because I was working for the first time for Graydon [Carter] and for VanityFair, and I didn’t know exactly what to do. I wanted to please them as a responsible photographer. But as far as being in the room with all these fancy folks, or famous people, I don’t care about that at all. The first time I went out to Hollywood, I’d never worn a tuxedo in my life, and we were sitting around in at the pool in Beverly Hills and [Graydon] says, ‘What are you wearing tonight, Larry?’ And I said, ‘Probably what I’m wearing this afternoon.’ He said, ‘Oh, no.’ [Laughs.] So Dana Brown, who now is an editor, but was Graydon’s assistant at that time, was assigned to take me down to the tux shop and get me all suited up, and rented a tux so I could be appropriate. So that was my first experience. I absolutely, always wear a tux to an Oscars party.

You said you were never nervous or intimidated around celebrities. Was capturing celebrity culture exciting to you or interesting back then? I had fun. I was very interested in power. So I was photographing Wall Street at a certain point, and then the parties and various aspects of power. It’s not that the stars in that particular world are powerful, but they’re not necessarily corrupt. But they are, in a way, the crème de la crème of elegance, and so it was a natural progression for me to be totally interested in coming to terms with that as subject matter. Plus, the fact that it was a great contract and great work. I lived in a way that I never thought was even possible for me. The flights and hotels and all that kind of junk. Do I miss it? No. I fly coach now! [Laughs.]

What projects are you working on right now?I’m photographing a family here in Pennsylvania who’s a lot like the Sabatines, the family in Social Graces, but equally as pithy, but with much more goodness in tact. I’ve been photographing for the last several years what you would call “the death masks” in gravestones. But I’m not just photographing the sculpture itself, I go into the faces with the little macro lenses and reinterpret them and try to, in a way, breathe life into them from within the stone to make the visual interpretation something a little bit more palpable. I’ve been working with just the human eye and face to see if I can bring — the series is called “Flesh and Stone,” and breathing life into the stone and not necessarily breathing death into the flesh, but having some kind of coordinate and putting them together so that there’s some kind of reflective relationship.

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Oscar Party, Kate Winslet, 2009 "This was a fleeting moment where I captured [Kate Winslet] in the light of the flash, which distracted her ... Oscar Party, Kate Winslet, 2009 "This was a fleeting moment where I captured [Kate Winslet] in the light of the flash, which distracted her to a certain degree. The way the picture is functioning is within a frame, so she becomes a picture in a frame. If you take the picture and hold it upside down, you see the area in her neck, and her face, chin, jaw, and shoulder are very reminiscent of some African constructions and cubist abstractions. Once you hold that picture upside down and look at it as a form, it's just unbelievable. And that's the power of the picture. It's not about Kate, it's about shape and form, and the way that she's placed in the frame."
Photo: Larry Fink

Oscar Party, Brad Pitt, 2000 "Brad Pitt's just a guy. It was a moment in time, and whoever the woman was was looking for his ear, and she ha... Oscar Party, Brad Pitt, 2000 "Brad Pitt's just a guy. It was a moment in time, and whoever the woman was was looking for his ear, and she had it."
Photo: Larry Fink

Oscar Party, Meryl Streep and Natalie Portman, L.A., 2009 "This is Natalie Portman and Meryl Streep. That's an uncharacteristic picture of a... Oscar Party, Meryl Streep and Natalie Portman, L.A., 2009 "This is Natalie Portman and Meryl Streep. That's an uncharacteristic picture of anybody. They're looking like they're sharing something very, very secret and deep. The thing about most of these pictures is that these are representations of people who are cast in the public eye as icons, and rightly so in many ways, but I don't see them as such. I see them as human beings. I try to, not to any degree of animosity or hostility whatsoever, but I try to slice a moment [that] is impacted with its humanity. They're just like you, me, or anybody."
Photo: Larry Fink

Oscar Party, 2000 "I don't have the slightest idea who that guy is. But he looks anxious, and the guy behind him doesn't look anxious ... Oscar Party, 2000 "I don't have the slightest idea who that guy is. But he looks anxious, and the guy behind him doesn't look anxious at all, so it's one of those marvelous photographic moments where you caught something where there are counter-distinctive elements [that] float and impact your perception of what it means to be alive in multi-leveled ways."
Photo: Larry Fink

Tribeca Film Festival, NYC, 2007 "It's Jonathan Becker, the terrific Vanity Fair photographer, and his assistant. Jonathan [has] this great ... Tribeca Film Festival, NYC, 2007 "It's Jonathan Becker, the terrific Vanity Fair photographer, and his assistant. Jonathan [has] this great sense of flair and leer in his eye, going after the bird at hand. [Laughs.] I don't know [the actress]. I probably didn't even know then! Back in those days -- by the way, I don't watch a lot of films or TV -- I, for the most part, didn't know who anyone was. After a while, after shooting for ten years, you kind of get to be familiar with some of the guys and gals, but basically, I was nonplussed."
Photo: Larry Fink

Adrianna, Torrente, 1998 "She's just a model putting on her own makeup backstage." Photo: Larry Fink

Oscar Party, 2009 "That's Mitch Glazer and his wife, Kelly Lynch. We were very friendly for a while, and had a lovely time. This is a very c... Oscar Party, 2009 "That's Mitch Glazer and his wife, Kelly Lynch. We were very friendly for a while, and had a lovely time. This is a very curious picture because it's not at all glamorous. In fact, it looks like they're having a really bad moment. I actually gave it to them and Mitch said, 'Geez, I hope this isn't a harbinger of things to come.' And I said, 'I hope not, too.' I haven't seen them in years, so I don't know how they are. I hope they're not that way. It's so atypical of what the presentation should be."

Milan Fashion Week, 1999 "I was doing that for V magazine. That's a picture about triangles and shapes, and people being very busy, and thei... Milan Fashion Week, 1999 "I was doing that for V magazine. That's a picture about triangles and shapes, and people being very busy, and their concentration on their skills. The gal in the back is looking at her list to see who's going to come on the show, the photographer is looking at his camera to see whether or not it's going to work. But basically, it's a very art historical picture in the way the geometry of the picture is almost as equally important as the human concentration within it."
Photo: Larry Fink

Thierry Mugler, 1998 "That's just some gal. She's pretty nonplussed, pretty bored, being unready for life and ready for the runway. The phot... Thierry Mugler, 1998 "That's just some gal. She's pretty nonplussed, pretty bored, being unready for life and ready for the runway. The photographers are swirling around her, and who knows what's going on with her brain. It doesn't look like much. I don't know if she's anybody that's taking drugs, but there are a lot of drugs in the industry. I wouldn't necessarily say that she was on drugs, but some of the kids and others want to black themselves out."
Photo: Larry Fink

Oscar Party, Elton John, 2009 "I knew Elton because Elton is a great photo collector and a nice guy. I photographed Elton's birthday p... Oscar Party, Elton John, 2009 "I knew Elton because Elton is a great photo collector and a nice guy. I photographed Elton's birthday party a while ago. He hired me, and I was the only photographer where the party was held. Then, Elton did something [that] was so unbelievable: Before he made his birthday speech, Elton says, 'First of all, I want to tell you that I am so honored to have Larry Fink photograph this party.' I almost dropped my pants. I mean, not because Elton is Elton John, I don't care about that, but because nobody does that. Nobody! I was just like, Oh, my God! He made me so happy. I just honor him so from that day on. This photo was a year or so after maybe, the year after, when I bumped into him at the party and it was late and he had his shades on."
Photo: Larry Fink

Jay-Z,
Rolling Stone, 2005 "I had photographed Jay-Z for Fortune magazine out in Hollywood, and I got thrown off the job because I was prom... Jay-Z,
Rolling Stone, 2005 "I had photographed Jay-Z for Fortune magazine out in Hollywood, and I got thrown off the job because I was promised that I would get real access to him and his coterie. But I [didn't]. There was more and more photo op stuff that people generally get these days, and I kept of refusing to accord to that. I became kind of pushy. Not Jay-Z -- he's cool because he knows what ambition is -- but some of his cohorts, who I don't know, decided that I was bad blood. They called up the editor of Fortune, and I'm on the way to wherever I was supposed to go to and they say, 'You're off the job.' I was off the job, but I had some terrific pictures of him in Vegas. Then, Jody called me from Rolling Stone, and she said to do some more because they were going to do a story on him. I showed up at the midtown office of his company and he said, 'Oh no, it's you again!' [Laughs.] Later, he actually invited me to come to his box at a ball game. Me being me, I said, 'No, I've had enough of you today, I'm going to go home.' Once again, I ruined my fortune for ambition. But I wanted to go home."
Photo: Larry Fink

Thierry Mugler Men's Fashion, 1998 "The seamster was behind the guy in white. I love that picture. There's so much about whites and to... Thierry Mugler Men's Fashion, 1998 "The seamster was behind the guy in white. I love that picture. There's so much about whites and tones and triangles. It's a deceiving thing. It's like all the beautiful, super-white tones on the beach. Except that it's not."
Photo: Larry Fink

Oscar Party, 2005 "Really, they're just looking miserable and the waitress is working. [Laughs.] There's one thing about that picture [that]... Oscar Party, 2005 "Really, they're just looking miserable and the waitress is working. [Laughs.] There's one thing about that picture [that] is really cool: the way that [the waitress] has her thumb on the towel there. She's just trying to get through the night. I don't know if they willget through the night under those circumstances."
Photo: Larry Fink

Thierry Mugler, Men's Fashion, Paris 7-98 "This is Thierry Mugler and that's in Paris. And that's a glimpse of the pouch. [Laughs.] That's w... Thierry Mugler, Men's Fashion, Paris 7-98 "This is Thierry Mugler and that's in Paris. And that's a glimpse of the pouch. [Laughs.] That's what that is! It's backstage at a men's fashion show. We call that 'The Glimpse of a Pouch.' I just made it up right now."
Photo: Larry Fink

Costume Ball, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995 "I was working for New York Magazine. It was the Costume Ball Institute. That's just the ... Costume Ball, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995 "I was working for New York Magazine. It was the Costume Ball Institute. That's just the folks with the [name] cards. I used to work for New York Magazine when Clay Felker was the editor, when he first started after being at the Herald Tribune. Clay was a piece of work, but he was a very good editor."
Photo: Larry Fink

Oscar Party, 2007 "That's Justin Portman and Natalia Vodianova. That's why you stay until 2 in the morning [at an Oscar party]. It's a pream... Oscar Party, 2007 "That's Justin Portman and Natalia Vodianova. That's why you stay until 2 in the morning [at an Oscar party]. It's a preamble to a smooch. I stood on a small couch to take it."
Photo: Larry Fink

Detour Magazine, 1999 "George Plimpton. That was for a magazine called Detour. We were actually illustrating, or trying to illustrate the sw... Detour Magazine, 1999 "George Plimpton. That was for a magazine called Detour. We were actually illustrating, or trying to illustrate the sweet smell of success. It was actually a constructed shot, but the way I would do that type of thing is I would let everybody get inside the scenario, set up my lights to where I thought it was appropriate, and then I would allow them to try to get drunk. Then they would go about their business of being spontaneous, drunk as they were, and I would make pictures. It wasn't just floating in the room, but creating the room with improvised spontaneity within it."
Photo: Larry Fink

Joan Rivers, QVC, 1994 "This was a gig for QVC, and for most of the afternoon, I photographed [Joan Rivers] doing all types of set-up ... Joan Rivers, QVC, 1994 "This was a gig for QVC, and for most of the afternoon, I photographed [Joan Rivers] doing all types of set-up kinds of things. Then, rather than putting my cameras away, I kept them around and I stopped photographing for a little while. She's on all the time. She's terrific and funny as hell. Her managers are enamored with her. She's actually a very nice gal, at least she was to me, and she said, 'The shoot's over?' So then I went about my business and I went back to work, and got myself a picture. The rest of the stuff that I did all afternoon was crap. It was useful crap, but it was crap. I was working for my living, but in this picture, I was living for my working."
Photo: Larry Fink

Oscar Party, 2000 "I call that picture 'The Amenities.' It's Hugh Hefner and his twins that he was piling around with at that time. So, I ca... Oscar Party, 2000 "I call that picture 'The Amenities.' It's Hugh Hefner and his twins that he was piling around with at that time. So, I call it 'The Amenities.'"
Photo: Larry Fink